The Best Sleep Mask Keeps Melatonin Production Healthy

Posted by Melissa Bamberg
on
February 11, 2015

The Best Sleep Mask and Full Rest Encourages a Positive Outlook

Sleep is vital to your physical and mental health. The quality of your sleep affects your performance, mood, and metabolism. This is because melatonin, an important hormone for entering deep sleep, is also a metabolic regulator, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogen. Your body’s production of this “miracle hormone” is determined by light.

When your eyes are deprived of light, a group of cells in your brain’s hypothalamus tells your body to start converting serotonin into melatonin. In the presenceof light, your body suppresses melatonin production and ramps up cortisol. Sunlight is an important source of serotonin as well. Keeping your hormone production in balance can make a big difference in the quality of your rest.

However, artificial light throws off this balance by suppressing melatonin production. So in this blog post, we discuss how the best sleep mask can improve your sleep, keep your melatonin production regular, and improve your health to encourage a positive outlook.

Health Risks of Melatonin Deficiency

The older you are, the less melatonin your body produces. Since melatonin is associated with increased immune response, antioxidant properties, scavenging of free radicals, and other benefits, this shows a link between melatonin deficiency and aging. While nothing can stop you from getting older, the best sleep mask aids your melatonin production, which allays some of the effects of aging—both cosmetic effects such as puffy eyes and crow’s feet, and more serious ones.

Melatonin’s role in tumor suppression is also notable. Melatonin deficiency from artificial light exposure puts women who do shift work at risk for breast cancer. This is because melatonin inhibits estrogen production, but also because your sleep quality and melatonin levels play a part in the strength of your immune system.

Melatonin and Eating Healthy

Light stimulates cortisol production and suppresses melatonin production. Increased cortisol presence is associated not only with stress, but with the production of ghrelin, the hunger hormone. One side effect of disturbed circadian rhythms from artificial light exposure is night eating, and because melatonin is involved in your metabolism, this can result in weight problems.

A sleep mask can prevent artificial light’s effects on your eating habits. There are also specific foods that can keep your hormonal production in balance, when combined with the quality rest the best sleep mask provides you. A good natural source of melanin is cherries, and tryptophan-rich foods like avocado, turkey, and cottage cheese are good natural ways of increasing your serotonin production. This is because your body breaks tryptophan down into serotonin.

Your Mask and Your Mood

Your body’s hormonal receptors are very sensitive. Serotonin deficiency can occur from working inside in an office away from natural light. Melatonin deficiency can occur from exposure to artificial light at night. Deficiencies can also occur from your body’s hormone receptors becoming “numb” from overexposure. Your body reacts by producing less of that hormone.

For example, when artificial light at night suppresses melatonin production, it keeps your body from breaking down serotonin into melatonin. Over time, your hormonal receptors become overwhelmed by this excess of unconverted serotonin, so your body slows on serotonin production. This can have disastrous effects on your mood.

A different example of how hormonal imbalance worsens your health is Seasonal Affective Disorder. The winter’s weaker sunlight prevents your body from producing the serotonin it needs for melatonin production, and the resulting sleep problems also worsen your mood.

In both cases, the best sleep mask can help keep melatonin production regular. When paired with a healthy diet, your mask will dramatically improve the quality of your rest and encourage a positive outlook.

Rest Well With the Nodpod

The most important thing about your body’s production of things like serotonin, melatonin, cortisol, and others is balance. You could be sunning all day, overloading on serotonin, but if you’re still exposing yourself to artificial light at night, you’ll sleep badly, and all that serotonin won’t mean anything—it may instead cause your body to produce less serotonin, since the excess affects the sensitivity of your brain’s receptors for serotonin.

In this blog post, we covered melatonin’s benefits. We discussed how the best sleep mask, a healthy diet, exercise, and sunlight are important parts of getting high quality sleep and keeping your body’s hormonal production in balance. Let the nodpod rejuvenate your rest.